Photo By James Brantley | Kristen Hosek, Kwajalein Jr.-Sr. High School science teacher, posed with the auroras...... read more read more
There is remote, and then there is remote.
Kristen Hosek, a Kwajalein Jr.-Sr. High School science teacher here, has added Kwajalein and Antarctica to her resume of places she has lived and worked. Hosek, 31, from Centennial, Colorado, is in her fifth year teaching on her second Kwajalein tour and has worked in Antarctica three seasons.
The equatorial polar hopper got her career started after her final semester at Colorado State University in 2011. She attended a teach-abroad fair during her final semester of college and accepted a teaching position on Kwajalein.
Kwajalein, Republic of the Marshall Islands
“I moved out here a few months after graduation as a 22-year-old, and taught physics, chemistry, earth science and zoology for three years,” she said. “During that time, I met several contractors who told me about McMurdo Station in Antarctica and pointed me towards a different job down there.”
Hosek left Kwaj in June 2014 and spent two austral summer seasons on the ice: a five-month and a six-month tour, as an air transportation specialist.
“I spent most of the time in between those seasons living in a van in New Zealand,” she said. “During the second one, I applied for and was accepted into a marine biology graduate program at Sonoma State University in California where I studied the physiologic effects of environmental stressors on mussels.”
Her research published earlier this month in the Journal of Sea Research (“Physiological and biochemical responses to acute environmental stress and predation risk in the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis”).
While in graduate school, her advisor’s husband received funding for a project at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, so she returned to the ice for a third season on a science research team studying the effects of global warming on Antarctic fish.
Just before she defended her thesis and received her master’s degree, she heard news of a science teacher position opening on Kwajalein and jumped at the chance to return. She has been back for two years now.
Hosek knew for a long time that she wanted to be a teacher.
“After I took biology in high school I was hooked on science,” she said. “I coached lacrosse and different sport camps for a long time and loved working with kids, so it was easy to tie the two passions together. If a student were interested in being a teacher, I would encourage them to find summer or part-time jobs that worked with children. They could also volunteer with or shadow a few different teachers to see what the work is like. It is never too early to start developing skills or get experience working with kids of all ages.
“I think every teacher would agree that you must genuinely love to teach to be in this profession for more than a year or two and it helps if you are also passionate about your subject. Science is such a dynamic subject with new discoveries every day, so you get to learn about fascinating topics alongside the students.”
Hosek says that teaching is incredibly rewarding, “though the rewards are not always obvious. They occur when you watch a tricky scientific concept ‘click’ for a student, or when one of them enthusiastically shares an experience they had that relates to the lesson. The rewards occur when you see a group of lab partners hunched over together, determinably figuring out a problem set, or when you hear students exclaim in excitement after a demo. Some rewards happen years later, when past students reach out to update me on their lives and achievements.”
Antarctica
“Kwajalein and McMurdo are very similar,” Hosek says. “Both are remote islands with close-knit communities comprised of about 1,000 fascinating individuals with a wide range of backgrounds.” She added that both have cafeteria food and dorm rooms (“I have my own room and bathroom on Kwaj!”) and more activities than she has time. “Both introduced me to gorgeous hues of blue and took me on fantastic adventures to places very few people get see.”
For those not familiar with life on Antarctica, here is a primer from Hosek.
“There are three permanent U.S. stations on the Antarctic continent. McMurdo is the largest, and its population peaks at about 1,000 during the austral summer. The average summer or Main Body contract is from October through February, when most people are down there.
“In early October the sun sets for the last time, so you get 24 hours of daylight through February, when the sun rises for the last time until August. The temperature is usually between -18 F – 15 F, but everyone has Extreme Cold Weather gear, including a massive parka, coveralls and boots to borrow for the season.
“Most people are contractors, whose main purpose is to keep the station running and support the scientists, colloquially known as “beakers.” The “beakers” present their research every Sunday night to the station and their projects are insanely cool. People are studying gravitational waves of the big bang, microbial life in the dry valleys, the effects of climate change on ocean life, and testing a submarine under the sea ice as a prototype of a model to send to one of Jupiter’s moons.
Her official contractor title during those first two seasons on the ice was air transportation specialist, and her job was to load and unload all cargo that arrived by air which included everything from luggage and scientific equipment, to building materials and beloved “freshies,” fresh fruits and veggies, which they could go weeks without.
“We used massive forklifts to load and unload C-17s and C-130s on the ice shelf runway and built pallets to deliver materials to the South Pole Station or other camps around the continent,” said Hosek. “Everyone works six days a week, 10-12 hour days, and it is the coldest, windiest and driest continent so you will be exhausted most of the time.”
So what do you do when you have time off at the end of the earth?
“There is so much to do during your day off,” she exclaimed. “It is very much a work hard-play hard kind of place. There are four gyms, including one with a climbing wall, a coffee shop with a separate-section movie theatre, two bars, and pool tables and ping-pong tables all around the station. A ton of talented musicians head there, so there is live music. All the time. Everywhere.
“There is a dance team that creates music videos and flash mobs, and indoor soccer, volleyball, yoga, belly-dancing classes, all run by volunteers. Other areas include a craft room, a radio room where you can practice your DJ skills, and open-mic nights, bingo nights, trivia nights. There are costume parties, music festivals, and massive dance parties.
“For outdoor fun there are several hikes, the shortest being a straight-up-the-hill, a 20-40 minute climb, while the longest is a six-mile hike that provides stunning views of Erebus, the southernmost active volcano. There is also a marathon and a half marathon race.”
Speaking of outdoor activity, what is the weather there like?
“It is so dry that the cold becomes relative,” she said. “In January when it warms up to a balmy 30 degrees F, people will be out in T-shirts. There are also rec trips that include walking around the pressure ridges by Scott Base (New Zealand’s station), a snowmobile ride across the sea ice to glacier ice caves, and trips to see R.F. Scott’s or Ernest Shackleton’s perfectly preserved huts from the early 1900s.
“You will see Weddell seals napping, adelie and emperor penguins waddling around, and when the sea ice clears, you may see orcas or minke whales. My second season was special because I went down in August (the end of winter, when it is dark for 23 hours of the day) and experienced -80 F wind chills, multi-day white-out storms, nacreous clouds, and best of all, the southern auroras.”
Hosek said that it was very cool to return to McMurdo as a “beaker” following her stint there as a cargo loader earlier, and contribute to a research team. “We were studying the ability of ice fish to adapt to warming waters after evolving for millions of years in the thermally stable environment of the Southern Ocean,” she said. “We would drive out onto the sea ice in a vehicle known as a piston bully, before drilling through about 6-7 feet of sea-ice. Thick gloves made it very tricky to reel in a fish, clutch it to our chests to protect it from the wind chill, and remove the hook so we could bring it back to the aquarium at the station. Sometimes seals used the breathing holes or stole our fish.”
While some readers will know Kristen Hosek as a science teacher here, others will know her from her artwork.
“I have been drawing, painting, sculpting since I was really young, and it continues to be therapeutic, relaxing and fun for me,” she said. “Lately, I have been doing a lot of ballpoint pen work. I like to draw the silhouette of an animal from some biome or region, and then try to fill in its biological community with all the amazing diversity of shapes and patterns. I also really enjoy painting with acrylics and drawing with charcoal.
So what does this scientist, science teacher, cargo loader, artist think is the best part about Antarctica?
“It is the people,” Hosek said. “It is definitely an island of misfit toys and some of the most fascinating individuals you will ever come across. World travelers, nomads and scientists – it is a crazy blend ranging from 21 - 70ish-years-old and each person has an incredible story. One time I had lunch with a woman who worked at the Long Duration Balloon Facility, and it turns out she was on a team of women who cross-country skied 850 miles to the South Pole. She also added that one of the best perks is the free ticket and visa to New Zealand and the chance to visit Mordor, Hobbiton and Edoras.”
Back on Kwajalein
“I do not even know where to begin with my favorite parts of Kwajalein,” Hosek said. “During any given week, I can drink fresh coconuts, play a variety of sports ranging from beach volleyball to ultimate Frisbee, ride my bike to the yacht club for happy hour or just enjoy a gorgeous sunset on Emon Beach.
“On any given weekend, I can dive with sharks at Troy’s Coral Head or at a massive WWII shipwreck, or peering over the wall on ocean side to the depths of the Pacific. Or maybe head to Bigej for a relaxing float or catch some mahi mahi for fish tacos. That is just the tip of iceberg. There are so many fun island events that I look forward to every year —spring break music fest, the ballroom dinner dance, the Rustman Race, to name a few—and all of those have happened in the past month. I love how easy it is to stay busy and active, as well as the blend of interests out here.”
Undoubtedly, Hosek loves her job. “I get to work with wonderful students and a fantastic faculty, with a cheeky octopus in my classroom aquarium and easy access to coral reefs in a beautiful turquoise lagoon. I love that interactions with students are not limited to a classroom; you get to know the families so much more when you coach or play against them on the soccer field, or run into them in the store or underwater.
“I never in a million years would have thought my first teaching job would be on a remote tropical island, but I am so thankful I found it,” she said. “Kwajalein has really shaped who I am today. This island has fostered a passion for marine life and diving and is the reason I pursued a master’s in marine science. I probably would have never made it to Antarctica if I had not met people on Kwaj who worked there. I feel incredibly fortunate to live on this tropical paradise, and it is hard to imagine finding a job I love more than this one.”
| Date Taken: | 05.23.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 06.12.2020 23:57 |
| Story ID: | 372077 |
| Location: | MH |
| Web Views: | 238 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Of Sand and Ice : One Woman's Adventure To Distant Parts of The Globe, by James Brantley, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
